(from Mean Girls, 2004)
This whole thing has gotten me thinking about what a secret actually is. It's not just something that nobody knows, or something that you're not supposed to tell. The term implies that somebody wants to know the information because it's interesting or dangerous - or at least intriguing. There are all sorts of things about myself that I don't talk about and that probably nobody knows - sometimes I brush my teeth in the shower, for example - but that doesn't really seem like an actual secret. Certainly not a good one. So the following are probably more under the category of "little-known facts" rather than actual secrets.
1. In high school, I once cheated on a PE test by looking at someone else's paper (I think it was on football, or maybe badminton). As class valedictorian, this is a pretty shameful tidbit; the only thing I can say is that had I done the test in question entirely on my own, I don't think the score would have lowered my class grade enough to affect my GPA so that I was no longer valedictorian. I remember in English class one year, I had completely forgotten to do the reading - very unlike me - and when the pop quiz came, I faced my problem with dignity and just did the best I could and then wrote the teacher a note on my answer sheet that said I had forgotten to read the short story. Ms. Haworth forgave me.
2. In a similar vein - and no, of course I don't have issues equating academic performance with self-worth, why do you ask? - in 8th grade art class I got a D on a project. Me. Beth Watkins. In art. A D. I don't remember if I cried in class - I don't think so - and I don't even remember what the project was. I do remember that I worked it off and by the end of the term I had gotten a big shiny A for my marker drawing of a pink Eiffel Tower, my take on an assignment to take a know object and trasnform it in an unexpected way. Seems pretty trite to me now, but I guess it was okay for a 14-year-old.
3. The live rock/pop concert I have most enjoyed was Journey at the grandstand of the Illinois State Fair...in 2002. Better late than never, I suppose. Other acts that year included Aaron Carter, the Gin Blossoms, and Engelbert Humperdinck.
4. Depending on the vehicle, I can get motion-sick at the drop of a hat. Ocean-going boats are iffy, sitting backwards in a train has proven complicated, and roller coasters are an absolute no-no.
5. I saved this one for last, because it's probably the most surprising of these if you know me well - it's just not the sort of thing you'd think I would ever do, especially because I was much more worried and timid when I was younger than I am now. In 9th grade, I got caught by a police officer making out with my boyfriend in his old VW beetle in a park after dark. That last bit of course was the actual offense - everything else was just tacky. The officer was actually very nice and just gave us a warning, and he asked multiple times if I was okay and if I wanted him to take me home. Said boyfriend turned out to be a short-term experiment and after I dumped him he started leaving pathetic notes in my locker, the combination to which he had furtively watched me enter and then stored in his calculator watch. I am so old. He was still annoying me two years later, so when he and I both got into all-state choir, as I was helping the choir teacher with the registration paperwork, I signed him up under a name that was not his actual name but one that he often got called by mistake and that he hated, as people who often get called the wrong name are prone to do. I knew this would drive him crazy, and the teacher laughed as I did it (who's the pet? yeah that's right). Sure enough, the boy was cranky about his "wrong" name tag and listing in the concert program for the whole festival.
That's why her hair is so big: it's full of secrets.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 9:08 AM
1 comments
1 comments
Love #5 :D
I used to get sea-sick all the time (which is even worse if you consider that we go sailing every summer ...) and I'd get sick in the car on any drive longer than 30 or 45min. And then it just went away all of a sudden, I have no idea why, but one summer I wasn't sick at all and since then I only get sick if I try to read in a moving car/bus/train or if I'm sitting with my back to the direction we're driving in. And on rollercoasters, definitely, I hate them!
Also, I can't believe you only cheated once and it's one of your secrets/little-known facts. In my school(s) almost all of us cheated all the time ...
By 
Maja, at
February 11, 2007
